The crime is fraud, and if he was using the service as offered he wouldn't have thousands of accounts pretending to be different people.

Are any major corporations doing something similar to this, play-botting to get other people's royalty money?

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paulryanrogers a day ago | parent [-]

Wasn't Brave browser caught replacing ads with its own? And the Honey extension replacing / injecting referral codes?

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whstl a day ago | parent | next [-]

> And the Honey extension replacing / injecting referral codes?

Fraud in larger scale and using other people's computers.

Was it ever prosecuted with the same vigour?

It's a corporation so I'm gonna bet no.

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JumpCrisscross 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> Was it ever prosecuted with the same vigour?

A class-action lawsuit is "still being fought at the pleading stage" [1]. The way this often goes is prosecutors will watch the discovery in that case to decide if anyone committed a crime.

[1] https://openclassactions.com/lawsuits/paypal-honey-affiliate...

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whstl 15 hours ago | parent [-]

So there was no criminal prosecution, just a lawsuit.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> way this often goes is prosecutors will watch the discovery >> there was no criminal prosecution, just a lawsuit Like, come on. (This reminds me of the folks on HN confidently concluding Elizabeth Holmes wouldn’t see the inside of a jail all the way through sentencing.)

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loeg a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I can't speak to the Brave thing, but the Honey thing is another example of fraud, yes.